


everything you know

by LtTanyaBoone



Category: X Company (TV)
Genre: Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 14:10:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7895662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtTanyaBoone/pseuds/LtTanyaBoone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things Alfred knows about Aurora.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything you know

**Author's Note:**

> When I was looking for a title for "0300 hrs", I tried "everything you know", because of Faber's line "You're going to tell me everything you know" to Alfred when he's taken prisoner. And it felt like that was a title for another story, so here it is.

 

**warning:** character death

* * *

 

There’s a moment just after waking in the morning when he feels boneless and save. He can see her smile then, if he keeps his eyes closed. Sees her face awash in the light of the early morning sun and the happiness dance in her eyes. Just as her lips are about to brush his, he jerks and his eyes open and reality returns.

  

—

 

When he moves his fingers down her spine, she squirms against him. He never read anything about her being ticklish and never caught her react to anyone else’s touch like that. But whenever he touches her like that, her breath hitches in her throat just so and she moves slightly, pressing against his fingertips.

 

—

 

There’s a nasty scar trailing across her stomach. Nasty because it is so jarring against her soft skin, the raised tissue. He never asks where she got it, afraid that if he did and she told him, he’d never be able to shake the memory. Now the sensation of the raised flesh against his fingertips haunts him instead.

 

—

 

Her voice is blue and purple. There are specks of orange in it sometimes, seeping through her teeth. And white-rimmed red, hot, burning from her anger and indignation.

 

And green. In her softest whispers, the moments no one else is supposed to hear, bright green against his lips and ears and chest, leaving behind the smell of the forest after rain.

 

—

 

Perhaps his favorite language falling from her lips is Hebrew. He doesn’t understand a word of it, and maybe that’s why he likes it so much, because he can just close his eyes and listen to her voice and watch the colors swirl around him.

 

—

 

She teaches him the French-Canadian folk song in the middle of night, when they’re both unable to sleep. Him because memories that aren’t even his own are haunting him, playing out before his eyes whenever he closes them. She because the choices she’s been forced to make are starting to bear down on her, start grinding her into the asphalt.

 

He thinks his German is horrible at that point in time, but judging from her face, his French is a lot worse.

 

—

 

Relinquishing control doesn’t come easy to her, so he is surprised to find how easy it is to guide her along the room, weaving through the dancing couples. She’s looking at him with an expression in her eyes he is afraid to examine too closely, especially when he realizes that her lips have tugged into a soft smile.

 

—

 

Red wine, something dry. Lavender and sunflowers. Raspberries and chocolate. French impressionists. Kafka and Rilke. Rachmaninoff’s piano concerts. He studies her favorites dilligently, makes room for them in his memory, keeps them at the forefront to look for ways to surprise her and put a smile on her face.

 

—

 

He teaches her a lullabye, an English one. Her mother sang to her in French and her father muttered in gruff German. It’s only after the mission that she takes his hand and presses a soft kiss to his cheek and thanks him, her voice equal parts blue and yellow. He doesn’t think any of the others realized that his knowledge didn’t come from a book this time.

 

—

 

She has her mother’s smile. He startles at the realization and his breath catches in his throat for a moment, the taste of something forbidden on his tongue. He’s not supposed to know that, he can’t help but think. It doesn’t matter that she showed him the picture herself, at the camp. He isn’t supposed to know, none of the others do. Yet it feels like such an immense treasure he cannot help but smile at the knowledge.

 

—

 

There’s a spot on the inside of her wrist that is rubbed raw from when she ran her thumbnail over it repeatedly, absentmindedly staring off into space as they’d waited for news on Neil, guilt gnawing at her, trying to break from her skin. He wraps it carefully, making sure she still have full range of motion in her hand. He knows she’s going to pull the bandage off as soon as they get up in the morning, but still she tolerates his doting for the time being.

 

—

 

Her hands run through his hair repeatedly and she makes shushing sounds when she holds him tightly after a nightmare he wakes from screaming at the top of his lungs. Every fiber in his being aches as her voice fill his ear, soft French words to a melody he almost recognizes; blue and purple swirling around them.

 

—

 

Her nails dig into his skin, leaving behind crescent shaped marks that sting, painful reminders of treasured moments, stolen from the rest of the team and their missions. Hushed whispers and harsh breathing and his name falling from her lips like a prayer, repeating over and over until the instances merge and he is _Redalfredalfredalf-_

 

—

 

The way her hair falls across her face as she sleeps, her head resting against his chest. He feels the new one staring, knows that they shouldn’t do this, but he can’t force himself to let go of her. It feels good, to have her in his arms, the way her body presses into his a reminder that they’ve made it out alive this time, too. At the back of a train bound for the South of France, she sleeps, head moving against his chest as the train rattles along the tracks and he feels his eyelids growing heavy with exhaustion, too. Feels Neil scoot over and his knee touches his and he gruffly tells him to catch a couple of winks, too.

 

—

 

Black bleeding into her voice as she yells his name and slaps his face and tells him to look at her, to not even think about closing his eyes. His entire body is on fire and he wants nothing more than to just curl up and rest, but the panic in her eyes and voice makes him stare at her with his eyes open wide.

 

—

 

How her laugh echoes when her head breaks the water and she splutters and he can’t help but grin at her exuberance. And how her eyes widen for the fraction of a second, warning but too late, and he is pushed forward and lands in the river himself. She drags him up by the color of his shirt and he coughs up water. Her kiss tastes like ice melting in spring. The lake is cold and Harry jumps in after him, sending water droplets flying and making him flinch as they hit his skin. She shakes her head and brushes her lips over his before he feels pressure on his shoulders and gets dunked.

 

—

 

Her fingers moving across his chest, pads smoothing down the material of his uniform. Hesitating in her eyes, a frown pulling her brows together. Brown stains in her blue voice as she tells him to remember the signal, remember his lines, remember-

 

He doesn’t remind her that he wouldn’t be able to forget, even if he tried. Just leans in and captured her lips and she sighs against his mouth, a shudder running through her.

 

—

 

It ends not in a loud bang, but a hiss, a hot sensation against his cheek and then she falls forward, her body going limp from one second to the next. He blinks and whispers her name, not understanding, for a moment, why her eyes are empty as they stare at him, an angry red mark against her temple. And then gunshots explode all around him.

 

_f_ _in._


End file.
